Kasey Kahne had 159 decent laps at Indianapolis and one bad one. Credit: AP

Last-lap crash could prove costly for Kahne

Third-year driver drops four spots after mysterious no-caution call

SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- Kenny Francis leans hard against the NASCAR officials' office trailer, arms folded, twitchy. He scratches the back of his head every 30 seconds or so. His chin is buried in his chest, his eyes fixed on his toes.

He's ticked.

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His mind, though obviously churning in disgust and confusion, is focused on the question posed him:

Should your wreck have even happened?

"I don't understand why the caution wasn't already out for that other wreck that happened in [Turns] 1 and 2," he said. "That is baffling to me."

The scenario that led up to Kasey Kahne's last lap accident in the Allstate 400 went like this:

With the white flag in the air, Greg Biffle and Robby Gordon made contact exiting Turn 2 and wrecked on the backstretch. NASCAR threw no caution.

Meanwhile, up ahead, Kahne was racing Tony Stewart for position and got loose underneath the No. 20 Chevrolet. In the attempt to avoid bumping Stewart, Kahne wrecked himself, dropping the No. 9 Dodge to a 35th-place finish, and more importantly outside the top 10 in the championship standings for the first time since the season-opening Daytona 500.

Though the accident was ultimately and admittedly Kahne's fault, had NASCAR thrown the caution for the Biffle/Gordon incident, the field would have been frozen. By NASCAR rules, if the caution flies after the white flag has been displayed, the race is over, the field frozen in the positions held when the caution flew, so long as the car is capable of maintaining that position. Therefore, it stands to reason Kahne would have slowed and not raced Stewart, and maintained a top-10 position.

Allstate 400 Official Results Pos. Driver Make 1. Jimmie Johnson Chevy 2. Matt Kenseth Ford 3. Kevin Harvick Chevy 4. Clint Bowyer Chevy 5. Mark Martin Ford 6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevy 7. Kyle Busch Chevy 8. Tony Stewart Chevy 9. Carl Edwards Ford 10. Denny Hamlin Chevy • Complete results, click here • Official standings, click here Final lapsJimmie Johnson avoids last-lap wreck taking the win Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

As the Nextel Cup Series heads to Watkins Glen International, Kahne stands 34 points behind 10th-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. In the six weeks since Kahne won the 3M Performance 400 at Michigan, he has plummeted from third to 11th in the point standings.

"It's just normal these last two months. We're good in practice, have a chance to win every race after practice, then get in the race and can't do anything," Kahne said. "It's just the way our cars have been lately. We haven't figured it out. Hopefully we do here soon.

"It's bad. You want to race good. Going into the race you think you have a shot to win the Allstate 400 and you battle as hard as you can for 15th, then at the end we start going forward, takes us all day to figure it out. It's a pain in the ass to race like that."

Pain in the rump or not, the fact remains Kahne was driving a top-10 car on the race's final lap, raising questions about NASCAR's decision not to throw the caution following the Biffle/Gordon accident.

NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston explained the thought process officials used in the scoring tower.

"What happened was, when [Gordon] and [Biffle] hit, they were still rolling, so we did not throw the caution at that point," Poston said. "Shortly thereafter Kahne and Hamlin wrecked and they threw the caution.

"Since the [Gordon and Biffle] cars were back under power and rolling, we wanted to do everything in our power to finish the race under green."

An admirable concept, one fans appreciate. But in this instance, Francis said, a suspect one.

	Kasey Kahne has one top-10 since his win at Michigan. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Kahne's results since Michigan Race Finish Rank Michigan 1 3 Sonoma 31 3 Daytona 25 4 Chicago 23 5 Loudon 8 6 Pocono 31 7 Indianapolis 36 11

"Well, [our wreck] probably shouldn't have [happened]," Francis said. "The yellow should have been out long before that, but it wasn't.

"I was going to ask NASCAR where they were at, but it's pretty clear the yellow was out for us. It's a big deal to us, but there's no way they're going to change it now."

The frustration is obvious throughout the Evernham Motorsports organization. Team owner Ray Evernham echoed Kahne's comments that the No. 9 team can't currently close the deal.

"The car's capable of running in the top 10, just can't finish there," Evernham said. "What do you do? You know? I thought we were headed for a top-10 there and didn't get it. We didn't hit the mark with any of the cars [Sunday]."

Francis had no answers.

"I guess I just don't know what I'm doing anymore," he said. "I guess I'll just have to find something else to do one of these days. It definitely was a struggle. I don't know what to say. It doesn't seem to race real good.

"But we come in that last stop 13th, came out 18th and were running ninth when we crashed, so I felt like we made the right call."

It does seem as if Francis made the right call.

Whether or not NASCAR did is debatable.

"You can't recover from it. We've had three engine problems this year. We've had a lot of issues that have cost us a lot of points," Francis said. "That's why the bigger issue is making sure something like that doesn't happen, stuff that's in our control, or somewhat in our control. Nothing's ever certain."

True. And at this point, Kahne's presence in the Chase for the Nextel Cup is anything but.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.